I have three picture that were taken inside a mass grave in Rwanda at a Catholic church where five thousand people perished. Short bit of prose follows. The pix kind of freaked me out. They were taken from exactly the same spot. I wouldn't recommend sticking your camera inside a mass grave. I regret doing it. If I could undo it, I would. I apologize for being dumb and disrespectful. It was my first time at a genocide site and I didn't know how to act.
The first one kind of has the look of dust in front of the lense. You can see linen draped boxes of bones in the background.
This one shows what appears to be a face moving in from the top left. I can see what I take to be eyes and cheek bones. The boxes of bones cannot be seen anymore.
This last one to me implies movement.
The crack in the white concrete is where I stuck my camera in and got the shots.
Short story; Do Not Disturb
I really screwed up.
Perhaps this should serve as a confession. I did something I really regret. If you don’t believe in ghosts, stop reading now. I believe. They are all around me, right now. Their hands are on my shoulders and I see their eyes reflected in the computer screen as I type.
It started the day we left Rwanda. I went to the bathroom on the plane and when I closed the door there was a little boy standing next to me with his hand held out. It was in the periphery and when I looked directly at his image in the mirror he vanished. When I glanced in a mirror as I was hustling between terminals in Brussels I could see them behind me, a dozen or so. I began to run, even though I was early for my plane. No one noticed because people running through airports are not that unusual.
But they are getting bolder now.
When I lay down at night I can feel their arms wrap around me, as if I am being pulled into the ground to lay with them. When I walk down the hallway in my house I can hear them shuffling behind me. It sounds kind of like sticks being dragged because they are just bones covered by a thin layer of dried skin and blood stained rags. They gather around me with their arms outstretched, but they do not speak. I don’t know if they are asking for the camera or wanting a water bottle, because they just stare, and the only thing about them that looks alive is their eyes. Their eyes accuse me. I didn’t kill them, but I sure as hell woke them up and after I finish writing this I intend to kill myself, because I cannot shake them and I cannot undo what I did. So I might as well give them what they want.
The tomb had a large crack in it, and the compulsion to stick my camera in there was overwhelming. I would give anything to undo that, but I can’t. I stuck my hand in there and snapped four quick photos.
The first one showed what appeared to be an orb. I assumed that it was a dust mote, but when I use my computer to zoom in on it, in the center of the orb is a face. A skeletons face. In the background I can see the linen draped boxes where the bodies are stored. The other three photos are dark, except there is a grey shape that moves through them. The first of the other three clearly shows the face of a child. You can see the eyes, the nose, but you cannot see the boxes of bodies behind them. The other two show the shape appearing to melt away and flee the light of the cameras flash. I wish I had never came here.
I was at a church where some four thousand people had been killed. It’s hard to imagine a so called man of God herding his flock into the building to be slaughtered, but that’s what happened. The priest had tried to buy gasoline to burn them alive, but there wasn’t enough available, so he hired a man that owned a tractor to knock the walls down onto the people, and then he ran the tractor over the rubble until the screaming stopped.
That’s not part of the official narrative; the screaming part, but I know. When I try to sleep I feel their hand pulling me down and I am amidst the crushed bodies, trying to breathe. I feel the rumble of the tractor and hear the moans of my new friends. I taste their fear and I feel like I am suffocating, but when I try to wake up, their finger hold my eyes shut and I can’t. When I finally wake up it is because a blinding flash, perhaps that of a camera, scatters them and they release me and I wake up screaming with the smell of death in my nose. Sometimes there is dirt under my fingernails.
But now, they follow me when I am awake. I feel their angry eyes staring at me, accusing. The hands of children pull at my clothes and weigh down my arms.
They are around lining the room now, staring at me with expectant faces. Waiting. Perhaps they want this to be finished and left as a cautionary tale. My confession. I sometimes slap at my shoulders to get their hands off me, but it doesn’t work. Of course, nobody else sees them.
Now, the dry smell of their skin is thick in the room, and it’s getting crowded in here. Perhaps if I agree to lay with them I can rest in peace. Perhaps this will bring them the peace back that my camera and my foolishness disturbed.
I am finished now. Please don’t do what I did. Let them sleep. Show some damned respect.
I have a gun, and now their faces are smiling at me as I put it in my mouth.
The first one kind of has the look of dust in front of the lense. You can see linen draped boxes of bones in the background.
This one shows what appears to be a face moving in from the top left. I can see what I take to be eyes and cheek bones. The boxes of bones cannot be seen anymore.
This last one to me implies movement.
The crack in the white concrete is where I stuck my camera in and got the shots.
Short story; Do Not Disturb
I really screwed up.
Perhaps this should serve as a confession. I did something I really regret. If you don’t believe in ghosts, stop reading now. I believe. They are all around me, right now. Their hands are on my shoulders and I see their eyes reflected in the computer screen as I type.
It started the day we left Rwanda. I went to the bathroom on the plane and when I closed the door there was a little boy standing next to me with his hand held out. It was in the periphery and when I looked directly at his image in the mirror he vanished. When I glanced in a mirror as I was hustling between terminals in Brussels I could see them behind me, a dozen or so. I began to run, even though I was early for my plane. No one noticed because people running through airports are not that unusual.
But they are getting bolder now.
When I lay down at night I can feel their arms wrap around me, as if I am being pulled into the ground to lay with them. When I walk down the hallway in my house I can hear them shuffling behind me. It sounds kind of like sticks being dragged because they are just bones covered by a thin layer of dried skin and blood stained rags. They gather around me with their arms outstretched, but they do not speak. I don’t know if they are asking for the camera or wanting a water bottle, because they just stare, and the only thing about them that looks alive is their eyes. Their eyes accuse me. I didn’t kill them, but I sure as hell woke them up and after I finish writing this I intend to kill myself, because I cannot shake them and I cannot undo what I did. So I might as well give them what they want.
The tomb had a large crack in it, and the compulsion to stick my camera in there was overwhelming. I would give anything to undo that, but I can’t. I stuck my hand in there and snapped four quick photos.
The first one showed what appeared to be an orb. I assumed that it was a dust mote, but when I use my computer to zoom in on it, in the center of the orb is a face. A skeletons face. In the background I can see the linen draped boxes where the bodies are stored. The other three photos are dark, except there is a grey shape that moves through them. The first of the other three clearly shows the face of a child. You can see the eyes, the nose, but you cannot see the boxes of bodies behind them. The other two show the shape appearing to melt away and flee the light of the cameras flash. I wish I had never came here.
I was at a church where some four thousand people had been killed. It’s hard to imagine a so called man of God herding his flock into the building to be slaughtered, but that’s what happened. The priest had tried to buy gasoline to burn them alive, but there wasn’t enough available, so he hired a man that owned a tractor to knock the walls down onto the people, and then he ran the tractor over the rubble until the screaming stopped.
That’s not part of the official narrative; the screaming part, but I know. When I try to sleep I feel their hand pulling me down and I am amidst the crushed bodies, trying to breathe. I feel the rumble of the tractor and hear the moans of my new friends. I taste their fear and I feel like I am suffocating, but when I try to wake up, their finger hold my eyes shut and I can’t. When I finally wake up it is because a blinding flash, perhaps that of a camera, scatters them and they release me and I wake up screaming with the smell of death in my nose. Sometimes there is dirt under my fingernails.
But now, they follow me when I am awake. I feel their angry eyes staring at me, accusing. The hands of children pull at my clothes and weigh down my arms.
They are around lining the room now, staring at me with expectant faces. Waiting. Perhaps they want this to be finished and left as a cautionary tale. My confession. I sometimes slap at my shoulders to get their hands off me, but it doesn’t work. Of course, nobody else sees them.
Now, the dry smell of their skin is thick in the room, and it’s getting crowded in here. Perhaps if I agree to lay with them I can rest in peace. Perhaps this will bring them the peace back that my camera and my foolishness disturbed.
I am finished now. Please don’t do what I did. Let them sleep. Show some damned respect.
I have a gun, and now their faces are smiling at me as I put it in my mouth.
